GameBanshee Forums

Originally posted by CM
is it worth it for me to upgrade to a gF4?

When it comes to computer hardware if you've got the cash get the best there is. Of course, it will be outdated in 6 months time, but hey, that's the way this industry works You will likely notice the difference with games like NWN, as they tend to get a bit graphics intensive.

Originally posted by Mr Flibble
Of course, it will be outdated in 6 months time, but hey, that's the way this industry works

I am not so sure, i have had my GF1 DDR for nearly 2 years now i think, it still plays pretty much everything perfectly, i don't have any problems with most of the games released, it will probably be okay for a while yet...although it was £190 at the time

So you saying what exactly?
If i have the money i should get a GF4.
Otherwise, a GF2 should work smoothly with the majority of games out at present and even in the future.

Originally posted by CM
So you saying what exactly?
If i have the money i should get a GF4.
Otherwise, a GF2 should work smoothly with the majority of games out at present and even in the future.

Not really, the GF2 is only a small evolution of the GF1, not a radical change, the GF2 will be in the same bracket as the GF1 for longevity. Just get a GF4 4200 and be done with it Avoid the MX whatever you do

Hey thanks guys, thanks alot.
From now on i will be posting here before i upgrade my computer

@CM:

If money is not an issue here, then get the best you can. By best I mean what suit your needs. If you are an action-gamer and want to play envelop-pushing games like Doom 3, Unreal Tournement 2003, or Unreal 2, then GeForce4 will be very good, but, as other people have said, do not ever buy a GEforce4 MX, because they are even worse than the GeForce3Ti models. If you are not into a lot of graphic intensive games, then you should probably buy a GeForce3 Ti model, and it's come down in price ever since the GeForce4 models came out. This model will run games smoothly at 60 to 100 fps at around 1024x768, and a little bit slower on higher resolutions, and if you turn anti-aliasing, say 2X or 4X, the frame rate will probably slow down to 70 or low 80s, but that's pretty good on most the games. As a general rule of thumb, try not to get any Nvidia cards with the MX extensions if you want good to excellent performance in games. If all comes down to whether you want to play graphic-intensive or envelop-pushing games or not.

Hey, guys!

How about the new Radeon 9000 which are "what most wished the GeForce4 MX cards would have been--fast, inexpensive cards with full DirectX 8.1 support." This from Gamespot.

So for $100 bucks, you get basically a Radeon 8500 with a new paint job and hopefully more performance than a GeForce4 MX at half the price of a GeForce4 Ti. If their driver support holds up, does this look like a good card?

Check out this not that much better than the MX, i still stay go for the Ti 4200

Although this might also be interesting to those who have the money.

Did anyone hear about the Raedon 9700, the card that has 256-bit color instead of 128, and has twice the pipeline that GeForce4 Ti cards have. From what I've heard, it's the same card that ran the Doom 3 demo at E3, and believe me, that demo is just mind-blowing. Several sites say that this could be the card to topple Nvidia's first place in the video card industry.

Originally posted by humanflyz
Several sites say that this could be the card to topple Nvidia's first place in the video card industry.

That is until Nvidia release their next card at which point the balance will probably be readdressed

Does anyone know if an S3 ProSavage PM133 would be able to run NWN? It came about a year ago, with the computer I'm using, but nowhere I've tried (Bioware Sysinfo dohickey, Tom's Hardware Guide, here) seems to know how many MBs it has. I know it runs BG2 and I think Warcraft 3, and it doesn't run Morrowind.

The ProSavage is a chipset from VIA, who also makes motherboard chipsets. You can read about them here. Is your S3 video card integrated on the motherboard or an external AGP or PCI bus (on an expansion card)?

It looks to me like the ProSavage cards are mostly for use as part of a motherboard's onboard video or offering expansion card video that is only marginally better than integrated video chipsets. From what I've read at the above link, I would avoid trying to play NWN on that video chipset. It looks like it shares system RAM as video RAM and NWN requires at least an 8 MB video card (most onboard video chipsets use 4-8 MB).

If you can afford it, I'd go out and buy a new video card; the prices on the lower end 7000- and 8000-series Radeons are dropping with the introduction of the 9700 and 9000, and the prices on GeForce4 MX cards is down under $100 (USD).